Title

Systemic versus topical administration of antioxidants in radiation-induced oral mucositis

Authors

Saikiran Bahadur¹, Diksha Koushal^2,*, Eesha³, Rajeeth Shetty⁴, Alpana Kanwar⁵, Rahul Kumar Tomar⁶ & Sitesh Kumar Samal⁷

Affiliation

¹Departments of Prosthodontics, Springfield Dental, Springfield, Massachussets, United State of America; ²Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology, Jaipur Dental College, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India; ³Department of Oral Pathology & Microbiology, Regional Dental College (RDC), Guwahati, India; ⁴Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Srinivas Institute of Dental Sciences, Mukka, Mangalore, Karnataka, India; ⁵Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology & Microbiology, Maharaja Ganga Singh Dental College and Research Centre, Sri Ganga Nagar, Rajasthan, India; ⁶Dapartment of Oral Pathology and Microbiology, DJ College of Dental Sciences and Research, Modinagar, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India; ⁷Intern, Kalinga Institute of Dental Science, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT) Deemed to be University, Patia, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India; *Corresponding author

Email

Saikiran Bahadur - E-mail: kiranmds@umich.edu
Diksha Koushal - E-mail: dikshakoushal@gmail.com
Eesha - E-mail: dreeshapanwar@gmail.com
Rajeeth Shetty - E-mail:rajeethshetty@gmail.com
Alpana Kanwar - E-mail: alpanakanwar@gmail.com
Rahul Kumar Tomar - E-mail: rahul376657@ymail.com
Sitesh Kumar Samal - E-mail: siteshsamal7@gmail.com

Article Type

Research Article

Date

Received July 1, 2025; Revised July 31, 2025; Accepted July 31, 2025, Published July 31, 2025

Abstract

Oral mucositis (OM) is a debilitating complication of radiotherapy in head and neck cancer patients. This study was done to compare the efficacy of systemic versus topical antioxidant therapy in preventing and managing radiation-induced oral mucositis. Total 150 head and neck cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy were divided into systemic antioxidants and topical antioxidants groups. Further subdivide into three subgroups based on the antioxidant agent used. Clinical parameters were assessed using the WHO oral mucositis scale. Both systemic and topical antioxidants reduced the severity of OM; however, topical antioxidants, especially curcumin gel, showed superior efficacy.

Keywords

Oral mucositis, antioxidants, radiation therapy, Vitamin E, curcumin gel

Citation

Bahadur et al. Bioinformation 21(7): 2149-2152 (2025)

Edited by

P Babaji

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.